


The Assets

by TheNerdPrincess



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: I found this in my folders, Old work, cheesy gratuitous adventuring, if ppl like I might continue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-22 01:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7412698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNerdPrincess/pseuds/TheNerdPrincess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do you like adequately written fanfiction with gratuitous fighting and adventuring set just after Captain America: The Winter Soldier? Then this is the fic for you! Main character is an original female character, it centers around her interactions with Bucky and SHIELD. Unsure if it's going to be romantic or not, may just be bromance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! So, I found this in my old folders and I remember having a lot of fun writing it. Let me know what you think! If it gets enough interest I may continue it :D

The Asse(t)s  
 **Chapter 1**  


I stuffed my hands deep into the pocket at the front of my hoodie. It was cold, even for DC in the fall, and the wind blew in icy gusts. Considering the mission I was presently on, I was glad for an excuse to pull up my hood.  
You think your Mondays suck? Two days ago, I discovered that the institution I had dedicated myself to my entire life was no more than a front for a sleeper nazi organization. Also, that meant that I and everyone I was close to was at risk of assassination, and I was out of a job.  
Not great news to start the week with.  
“You don’t have it that bad, Lizzie,” I thought to myself. It was true.  
Everyone I was close to was well capable of taking care of themselves, and we trusted each other to stay alive and get back into contact once everything calms down and the world is back to relatively-safe. Being jobless had its perks though. I was free to devote myself to my current personal goal: learn as much as possible about HYDRA. If I had been working for them instead of SHIELD since I was a little girl, I wanted info.  
Unfortunately, Natasha’s info dump didn’t do much, as HYDRA agents cleaned up important files as quickly as possible. So the real information-leaders, important bases, previously unknown tech--all that was wiped away. And I’m no hacker, so I had to find out what I wanted to know the oldschool way. That meant identifying someone who could tell me what I wanted to know, and extracting the intelligence from them.  
Thankfully, I had contacts who were able to pull some files before HYDRA got to them. And those files told of an asset. I didn’t know much about him, but I figured if anyone knew about HYDRAs inner workings it would be him.  
And that’s why I’m here, cold, dirty, hungry, and tracking a guy who seems pretty lost. Nothing like the ruthless assassin described in the files.  
Part of me wonders if I’m wasting my time. The other part is too terrified to consider what happens after this is over.  
I keep tracking him.  
His shoulders are hunched, the jacket slightly too small for his left arm. In his right hand swings a bag from the soup kitchen he had just visited. Growling, my stomach reminds me I haven’t eaten for nearly a day. No time, my target is always on the move, barely sleeps, eats very irregularly. I try to placate it with half a granola bar.  
The more I think about the target, the more uneasy I grow. He’s not acting like an assassin, he’s acting like a homeless guy with a lot of reasons to look over his shoulder. What if he wasn’t working for HYDRA anymore?  
“Doesn’t matter, he still probably has info I could use,” I tell myself, hunching my shoulders. With another gust, the wind sends brown leaves into a miniature whirlpool in the gutter. I watch it for a moment, and when I look up, my target is nowhere to be seen.  
“Crap.”  
The knife concealed in my boot presses against my leg, as if to remind me of its presence. Scanning the area, I run through all the places he could be. My best bet, after tracking the guy for a couple days, was the abandoned warehouse on the corner. If he had hurried, he could have slipped away in there before I noticed. I didn’t want to think about why he would suddenly start hurrying. I didn’t want to think, for example, what he could do to me if he caught me off guard. I didn’t want to think about the dozens of deaths attributed to him. Or about his cybernetic arm, which would cause problems for anyone, including me.  
Shifting into defense mode, I entered the building at a crouch, my brown eyes flicked over the rotting crates, abandoned supplies, and up to the catwalks above. No sign of him, but that certainly didn’t mean he wasn’t there.  
I drew my knife.  
Just then, I heard squealing tires outside, and the sound of heavy boots on the ground. Snapped orders, gun safeties clicking off.  
“I’m guessing that isn’t a gang fight about to happen,” I thought, then sprinted to a stack of crates in the dark corner and crouched behind them. With the perspective shift, suddenly I could see my target. He was behind a large pile of machinery, back to an overturned forklift, pistol in hand.  
Silently, a dozen operatives outfitted in black, probably bulletproof equipment and visored helmets filed in through the door. As one turned to address another, I saw a flash of red on the collar of his vest. A logo.  
“HYDRA,” I growled mentally, flipping my knife once and prepping my muscles for combat.  
“Wait, if the Winter Soldier is HYDRA, then why are they all here as if they’re capturing him? Unless….”  
I’ve been tracking the wrong person the whole time. This guy was nothing but a lackey. A dangerous but extremely uninformed lapdog. I blew air through my nose in exasperation. Now all I wanted was a good meal and a hot shower, but HYDRA was blocking my only exit. And could the Winter Soldier really handle a dozen heavily armed men? Well, I was about to find out.  
With deadly efficiency, the Soldier engaged. He leapt straight into the middle of the group, rendering their medium-long range assault rifles fairly useless. Within a minute, he had taken half the group down. But someone had radioed in for assistance, and I could hear horns blaring in the distance as more HYDRA agents raced to the scene. And if more arrived, I would never get out of this bloody warehouse alive. I had to engage.  
Creeping along the wall, I waited until I was on the outskirts of the combat. Five agents of HYDRA versus one supersoldier and me. With a time limit of about two minutes. I liked these odds.  
Running the last few steps, I ducked to slice open the closest agent’s calf, then found a chink in his armor between his helmet and his vest and stabbed him. I spared the Winter Soldier a glance. Surprise and uncertainty was written all over his face as we locked eyes. But neither of us had the time to get a read on the other, as there were four agents left. As the other two attacked the Soldier, I swept the legs out from under my next assailant. He slammed into the ground. Swiftly kicking away his weapon, I drove my heel into his left shoulder, then stabbed up underneath his vest. I heard a thump, and looked over to see that the Soldier had snapped the last agent’s neck. He looked over at me, and for a second I thought I was next on his hit list.  
“HYDRA backup will be here in a minute, tops,” I said, then dashed out the door.  
I know, I know, don’t run with knives. It was only for a couple hundred yards, until I made the cover of an alley. I crouched behind the dumpster as three black SUVs went racing by--definitely breaking the speed limit, that’s illegal--and used the edge of my shirt to clean blood off my knife. I returned it to its sheath, then flipped up my hood and strolled away, appearing to take no notice of the swarming agents in the building behind me.  
I had no mission. I had no information. I had no job, all my family and friends were either dead or gone dark, and for the first time since I woke up, I had no idea what to do with myself.  
Remembering my previous thought of a large meal and a hot shower, I turned towards home with a sigh. The cold wind kept me hunched over and the bad neighborhood kept my eyes on the ground, so I didn’t notice the shadow on the rooftops above me.  
My apartment welcomed me home with a mostly empty pantry. Groaning, I remembered that I had been meaning to go grocery shopping after work on Monday. Obviously that hadn’t worked out for me.  
I fished a box of instant mac and cheese from the back of the shelf (wait, I owned pickled onions? Why?) and made it while nearly dead on my feet. Adrenaline gone and mission no longer applicable, exhaustion grew over me like a timelapse of mold growing on a piece of bread. It hazed my mind, dulled my reflexes, and made me think of completely awful similes. I ate a plate of cheesy pasta but didn’t taste a thing. My shower was just long enough to wash up and scald away the lingering chill on my skin. Then, barely able to pull on boxers and an oversized SHIELD hoodie, I fell into my fluffy bed and was asleep instantly.

I once attended one of those motivational speakers that bosses like to torture employees with. The guy wasn’t all bad, he had a good sense of humor and told us stories about his pet squirrel. Anyway, one of the things he talked about was ‘mattress victory.’ Also known as: forcing yourself to get out of bed in the morning. Because your mattress wants you to stay in bed, so you have to fight it and escape, thus achieving mattress victory.  
Today I did not achieve mattress victory.  
I must have slept until four am (pretty good, considering I went to bed at five the previous afternoon), and then dozed for another couple of hours. At seven I jerked awake, well and truly awake, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. Then I heard it, gunshots outside.  
Well, that’s not surprising. This is America after all. I went to go take another shower.  
This shower was much more pleasant. I made good use of my waterproof speakers, blasting Taylor Swift and singing along loudly as I washed my hair. Probably not healthy to wash hair twice in twenty four hours, but I didn’t care.  
“Heart breakers gonna break, break, break, break, break.  
And the fakers gonna fake, fake, fake, fake, fake.  
Baby I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.  
Shake it off, shake it off!”  
I love using music to distract me and help me ignore important problems. Problems such as: what to do with my life. I’m 26...sort of. I should have this figured out already. But no, my employer had to be a secret government agency that had to go implode and ruin everything. Maybe I’ll just be a barista, that’s a safe job, right?  
I stepped out of the shower into the steamy bathroom. My medium length brown hair hung in tangles around my face.  
“That’s going to suck to brush out later,” I thought, knotting it more as I toweled it off. Wrapping another large, white, fluffy towel around myself, I went into my room.  
“What to wear,” I pondered aloud, examining my closet of stylish clothes and accessories. I then picked up a pair of grey sweatpants that had been kicked into the corner and a hoodie emblazoned with My Chemical Romance’s logo, putting on clean underwear and slipping into them. Deciding that my hair was a problem for the near future-anything but right that minute-I walked out to my kitchen. And living room and dining room, I suppose, since my apartment is fairly open plan.  
I’m not sure what tipped me off. The movement of my curtains in the slight breeze, perhaps, or the dark shape just barely in my peripheral vision. I continued to the kitchen, slid a drawer open, grabbed the gun in it, and wheeled around. The Winter Soldier stood in my living room, defeat in the slump of his shoulders, despair in his drawn eyebrows and downturned lips.  
“What are you doing here?” I asked, moving so that my kitchen’s island was between us.  
“HYDRA is sweeping the city for me,” he said. His voice was low and rusty, as if he didn’t use it a lot. “And you’re the only person I know who has never tried to kill me.”  
Well, he had a point there. Still, the sudden appearance of an (apparently ex) HYDRA assassin in my living room was slightly unsettling.  
“How did you find me?”  
He looked away.  
“I followed you home.”  
Creepy, yes. But not the creepiest thing that I have ever experienced a guy do.  
I weighed my options. On one hand, he could probably kill me with his cybernetic arm tied behind his back. He would find it difficult, but he had stronger stuff in his veins then I did. On the other, he looked for all the world like a lost puppy. And if HYDRA got their hands on him, they could easily turn him back into the remorseless killing machine that soaked the files I read in the blood of innocents. And I could not let that happen.  
“Okay, you can stay,” I said, lowering my gun a fraction of an inch. “But I want you to put all your weapons in my lockbox. And for the love of god, take a shower. The streets are full of all sorts of crap, and I do not want to get sick.”  
“Even though I’ve never been sick in my life. Oh well, it’s a streak I don’t want to break. Plus with this ebola thing going around...can’t be too careful.”  
He nodded.  
“I’m going to go get my lockbox now,” I said, sticking my gun in the pocket of my hoodie. I hurried to my room and retrieved the heavy black box from beneath my bed. With some difficulty, I dragged it out into the living room. After entering the code, I flipped up the lid. The Winter Soldier unloaded a pile of weapons and stacked them neatly into the box. Every time I thought he was done, he pulled a knife from somewhere, or withdrew some throwing stars or extra ammo. This continued for nearly a minute. When he finally sat back, I raised an eyebrow.  
“Sure you got it all? Nothing hiding in your hair?”  
He looked at me in confusion, and I sighed.  
“It was a joke, don’t worry about it. Go take a shower, everything you need should be in there, as long as you don’t mind your hair smelling like raspberries.”  
He drifted into my bathroom silently and I shook my head. What had I gotten myself into?


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish there was BBC code instead of HTML for formatting. Ah well.  
> Chapter two!

I heard the shower start, and figured I might as well make breakfast for two. That’s when my lack of food presented itself once again, I had maybe half a bowl of Fruit Loops left and a boiled egg that I would not trust to still be good. Should I run to the store now, or wait until my unusual houseguest finished showering?  
 _“The grocery store is only at the corner, I won’t be long,”_ I thought. I scribbled a note to the Winter Soldier.

“Gone to buy some food at the store on the corner. Will be back soon, help yourself to the tv or whatever. -Lizzie”

With that, I changed into jeans, grabbed my wallet, and headed for the door. I had almost made it before I remembered my hair.  
“I literally couldn’t care less!” I exclaimed to myself, snagging a baseball cap from the table by the door. I then left, making sure to lock the door behind me.  
The walk to the store was cold, but it must have rained last night, as the oppressive grey clouds had dissipated to allow chilly sunlight to stream down upon the bustling city. I made it to the store within a few minutes, grabbed a red shopping basket, and began grabbing what I needed. Every second I was away from my apartment, I grew more worried about the man staying there. He could be tracked down and attacked by HYDRA. Or he could lie in wait and kill me when I get back, so he could use my apartment as a bolthole. God knows no one would be suspicious of my disappearance for a couple weeks at least.  
I realized that I had been holding a carton of milk with a death grip as I thought this, and placed it in my basket, wiping the condensation on my hand off on my jeans. The moisture left a darker patch in the fabric. Oh well, it would dry out, and it's not like I exactly looked stunning today anyway. Looking up, I noticed a well bundled woman standing beside the cheese assortment, eyes fixed on me. My fingers closed around the brim of the cap and tugged it down.  
Hurrying to get the rest of the food I wanted, and picking up some extra first aid equipment while I was at it, I completed my shopping and headed for the front.  
Thankfully the self checkout was free, and I was able to buy my stuff with speedy efficiency and load it into bags. Thinking of the extra weight from groceries for two people instead of just one, I double bagged. Sorry environment, I’d rather make it home with all of my purchases. And I promise to reuse!  
Hands weighted with a couple bags each, I made my way home. Just as I was passing a thrift store, I wondered if the Winter Soldier had any extra clothes on him. Probably not. Sighing heavily, I entered the dimly lit store, grabbed a few things that looked his size, and bought them quickly.  
Loaded down with even more bags, I hurried home.  
When the door swung open, I eyed my completely empty apartment cautiously. My fingers itched to draw my knife, but I had too many bags, so I just proceeded carefully.  
A flash of dark color at the edge of my vision gave me just enough forewarning to drop the bags and crouch slightly before the Winter Soldier slammed into me, throwing me to the ground and pinning me down with his metal hand around my upper arm and his knee in my stomach. Drawing my knees towards my chest, I gained purchase with a crotch shot and launched him off of me, leaping after him and flipping the situation so I could have him pinned down.  
“What the hell was that?” I yelled at him. His bedraggled hair was still damp, and he was much cleaner, but he had put back on his street-grimed outfit so he still smelled a bit like smoke and trash.  
“How long til they get here?” he growled, having trouble speaking. That might be because of my knee pressed into his throat, but let’s not jump to conclusions. I sat back slightly, frowning in confusion.  
“How long til who gets here?”  
He used my distracted confusion to send me flying. I crashed into the kitchen’s island hard, the the cold granite probably leaving a permanent dent in my spine.  
“HYDRA! You just contacted them, didn’t you?” he demanded, standing. I groaned from my position lying on top of the counter.  
“No, you walnut brained imbecile, I went grocery shopping! Did you not see my note?” My hand flopped in the general direction of the fridge, where my note was pinned to the appliance with a magnet shaped like an old telephone. Eyes following my gesture, he scanned the note with a flick of his eyes. I allowed my hand to fall with a huff.  
“Obviously not. I do want to help, you know. Besides, I’m probably the furthest thing from HYDRA you could find at the moment.”  
“SHIELD?”  
I hesitated. “Well, no. Not anymore, at least.”  
I hopped off the counter, trying to conceal how much my back hurt as I retrieved the bag from the thrift store.  
“Take these and get changed. They were the cleanest stuff I could find that looked your size.”  
He caught the bag that I tossed him, and headed back towards my bathroom.  
“Oh, hey,” I stopped him. “What’s your name?”  
In the few files I had read, he had only been called ‘the Winter Soldier’ or ‘the Asset’. I refused to believe he was as inhuman as all that, the files had implied he hadn’t operated under free will, and I wanted to remove the man in front of me as far from his track record as possible. “Judge people on their present not their past” is a saying I hold near and dear to my heart.  
“Bucky,” he says, slowly.  
“Okay Bucky, go get changed.”  
He left, bathroom door swinging shut behind him.  
Now alone, I lifted my shirt slightly in the back and probed my spine with careful fingers, wincing occasionally.  
 _“Yeah, that’ll leave a mark,”_ I thought, sure that a massive bruise was already forming along my lower back. Oh well, I’ve had worse.  
Unpacking the groceries on autopilot, I started thinking about Bucky. I knew precious little about him, but the name ‘Bucky’ was familiar. I closed my eyes, and my mother’s voice sounded inside my head, telling me stories of Captain America and his team when I was young. Heroic tales of bravery and victory. Once I was older, the stories shifted in tone. They became darker, grittier. And finally she told me how the Captain had died. Or how she thought he died.  
Backtracking away from the painful memory of my mother, I searched through the other stories. Bucky, of course! This guy shared a name with Cap’s best friend, the one who fell off Zola’s train. Immediately the dots connected. If Steve could survive seventy years on ice, was it possible Bucky had survived the fall from the train? He had been experimented on by Zola before Steve rescued him, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility….  
Just then, Bucky emerged, looking much less homeless now he was wearing a clean grey hoodie and dark wash jeans.  
“We can get you some other clothes and new shoes later, after the whole HYDRA thing has calmed down a bit.” I said, looking him up and down with a critical eye. He certainly was well built. “And maybe a haircut too. If you want. Breakfast?”  
I held up a box of Frosted Flakes, but he hadn’t moved from the doorway. He just stood there, looking at me with a sad, confused expression. I raised an eyebrow.  
“Why are you doing this?” he asked finally.  
“Look, if you don’t like Frosted Flakes, I have Shreddies too. You don’t have to eat these if you don’t want, I just thought-”  
“No,” he interrupted, shaking his head as if to jog his thoughts. “Why are you helping me?”  
 _“That’s a goooood question,”_ the sensible side of my brain said. I shooed it back into the corner where it usually stayed.  
“Enemy of my enemy is my…” I stumbled over my words, pausing to think.  
“Are we friends? We haven’t exactly tried to kill each other yet, but I’m not sure that counts as friendship.”  
“Ally.” I finished. “We both hate HYDRA, I’d say that puts us on the same page. Hungry?”  
He took a moment to consider what I had just said, then nodded once, slowly. I wasn’t sure if that was accepting my statement or an answer to my question, but I poured him a bowl of Frosted Flakes anyway.  
Apparently killing people for a living teaches you to eat quickly, because we both finished in under five minutes. I took his bowl and mine and set them in the sink, currently living one task at a time. I really had to sit down and figure out what was next in the grand scheme of things, this whole improvisation thing was stressing me out a bit.  
“Hey Bucky, do you know how to work a TV?” I asked. He shook his head.  
“Right, here’s the remote. This is the power button. These buttons change the channels, and these ones change the volume. Go nuts,” I explained, then retreated to my room. I had decided to call Natasha, maybe she would be able to help me figure out a next step. Dialing her number, I pace my room and the phone rings. It went to voicemail three times before I gave up.  
Someone knocked softly on my door.  
“Yes?”  
Bucky, obviously, stuck his head in. “You might want to see this,” he said shortly, before leaving. I followed him to where he stood in front of my TV.  
“Bucky, what’s up--oh.”  
Natasha was onscreen.  
“You’re not going to put me in a prison,” she said calmly, looking her accuser straight in the eye. “You’re not going to put any of us in a prison.”  
For the first time since this storm started, I factored in the possibility that I, and my past, was known. That could cause issues later. I filed it away.  
“You know why?” Natasha continued.  
“Do enlighten us,” the man said. I was impressed, it takes a lot to stay calm with Natasha Romanoff staring you down.  
“Because you need us. Yes, the world is a vulnerable place, and yes, we help make it that way. But we’re also the ones best qualified to defend it. So if you want to arrest me,” she tilted her head. “Arrest me. You’ll know where to find me.”  
With that, she stood and made her exit. The camera cut to a man talking in the studio, but I didn’t hear him.  
“This whole SHIELD exposure thing is leaving me feeling rather vulnerable,” I said, suddenly knowing what my next move was going to be. There were parts of me that didn’t like it (at all), but I knew it was the right thing. It was what mum would have wanted.  
“What happened?” Bucky asked.  
Of course, he would have no idea. While Natasha was dumping all of her-and my, and Fury’s, and SHIELDs, and HYDRAs-secrets onto the internet, Bucky was smashing Steve’s face in.  
“In order to expose HYDRA, Natasha uploaded all of the files from SHIELD to the internet. Now everyone knows her past,” I explained.  
“And yours,” Bucky said, looking down at me. He's a quick one.  
I pursed my lips and nodded.  
“What are you going to do?”  
Turning back to my room, I started walking away. “Something I’ll probably regret.”  
He trailed after me. “What?”  
Just as I reached the door, I turned to face him. Damn, he was tall.  
“Go back to SHIELD. Well, kind of.” 


	3. Chapter 3

After closing my door on Bucky--I felt bad, but I needed some privacy after realizing any random person on the street could read my life’s story if they wanted to--I surveyed my room. Everything just seemed to tie me to an old life, one I didn’t especially want to remember right now. It was too close to the present, but still locked away in the past. A new chapter had started for me, and I wasn’t sure of the plot. All I knew was that a new character was introduced, and he was sitting on the couch in my living room, watching the news.  
Could I take him to the new SHIELD base? Would he want to go? It would be safe at least.  
 _“Yeah, as long as they don’t think he’s still under HYDRA’s control.”_  
I was going to have to ask him about that, and get the full story. I hate making under informed decisions.  
“Hey Bucky,” I said, emerging again. He looked up. “I need to ask you some questions.”  
His face immediately closed off, but he nodded. I perched on the arm of the couch.  
“I know you worked for HYDRA and don’t now, but how did they have you under control? Blackmail? Hostages?”  
He just stared at me, then looked down at his lap. His metal hand clenched.  
“Brainwashing.”  
I stared at him. If I had less self control, my mouth would have flopped open. That kind of technology existed?  
 _“Fury has kept me in the dark about more than I assumed he would,”_ I thought darkly, before turning my full attention back to the man in front of me.  
“They would wipe my memories, give me a mission, and I would do it,” he said, jaw clenching. His breathing was elevated slightly, and every few seconds he’d close his eyes and dig his nails into his hand. I wanted to help, but that’s hard when you don’t know what’s wrong.  
“Bucky?” I said softly, sliding off the arm of the couch and kneeling on the pillows next to him. My hand hovered over his shoulder for a moment, before I placed it there gently. He flinched hard, as if he had been expecting me to slug him in the jaw.  
“The man on the bridge,” he said in a quiet, forceful voice laced with restrained pain. “Who was he?”  
 _“When he said they wiped his memories, he really meant it,”_ I realized in wonder.  
“His name is Steven Grant Rogers,” I said, careful to keep my facts as basic and removed from my mother’s stories as possible. “He was your best friend in Brooklyn when you two were growing up in the 1940’s.”  
I wished I could tell him more, but this was strange territory to me, and I wanted to make sure all the information was correct.  
“Come on,” I said, getting off the couch and offering him my hand. “We’re going on a field trip.”  
Was taking him out in such an unstable state dangerous? Probably.  
Was I behaving stupidly because I didn’t want to get too close to conversations I was not ready to have-with him or anyone? Yes.  
I hadn’t ever really talked about what happened in my past. Amazing how you can repeat “I’m fine” enough for people to actually believe you.  
He took my hand. His was big and warm and calloused, mine small and scarred and strong. I led him towards the door, where I gave him an extra jacket, a pair of gloves, and my baseball cap from earlier. Then, quickly, I brushed out my hair. I’m pretty sure you could make an entire wig from the hair I pulled out in my rush, but I didn’t want to wait. I wanted to get this over with.  
Wrapping my hand around his forearm, I led him out of my flat, out of the building, and onto the streets. I contemplated hailing a cab, but I didn’t want to put him into a small space at the moment. He was still breathing deeply and trying to get himself under control.  
The walk only took about ten minutes. That’s one advantage of working for SHIELD: they want to make sure you can get from home to work on very short notice, so you live about ten minutes from anywhere.  
“We’re here,” I whispered, and he looked up. The giant banners outside of the museum depicted Captain America in all his glory, announcing an exhibit that would last from July 4th, 2014, through July 4th, 2016. I pulled Bucky inside.  
Once we got to the exhibit, I didn’t have to pull anymore. He drifted forward, as if drawn by magnets to the relics of his past. First, he read the part on Steve. Then he saw the section dedicated to him, and walked slowly over to it. I stood a ways behind him, watching silently as he soaked in the story of the man he used to be. I didn’t bother to read any of the plaques or look around the exhibit, I had been here many times before. Instead, I watched Bucky closely. He had everything ripped from him, had been unmade and abused, and was only just figuring out who he was before so he could figure out who he wanted to become. It was the sort of thing that would tear apart anyone else, but he was just standing there.  
Moving closer, I changed my angle so that I could appear to be reading the display on James Montgomery Falsworth while actually keeping an eye on Bucky. His eyes focused on the picture of him, before falling from the train. His mouth was open slightly, he just looked so vulnerable. My anger at HYDRA grew, and in that moment I adjusted my previous plans. Yes, I would go back to SHIELD. I would help rebuild, I would assist the new director in every way possible. But before tying myself down with red tape and superiors, I would take down as much of HYDRA as possible. I would root out every agent, eradicate every base, destroy every piece of tech until they could never hurt another good person again. So they would never make someone else suffer like Bucky.  
My only regret was that I couldn’t ask for his help.  
I could never ask Bucky to return to HYDRA, even if it was to eradicate every remnant of the organization that was literally the scum on the barnacles on the ship that was SHIELD. I couldn’t ask him to face his demons so soon after escaping them.  
Part of me wanted to leave right away, but I couldn’t do that to him either. I had always been someone my friends could rely on, whether for a tub of ice cream and a revenge plan when their partners broke up with them, or an extra pair of boots on the ground during an op. Even though Bucky and I weren’t friends, we were allies, and allies didn’t abandon each other.  
I pushed my anger at HYDRA down, allowing it to smolder right beneath the surface, ready to spring forth and burn when the time was right.  
“Bucky,” I said softly, forcing his hand to unclench by wiggling my fingers into it. He loosened up slightly and looked down at me. “You okay?”  
His jaw clenched, but he nodded after taking a deep breath.  
“Ready to go home?” I asked. Another nod. I led him out of the museum, knowing he could practically walk into a wall with the introspective state he was in. As we exited the building, I noted how much the sun had set. It sent waves of blazing colour out across the sky as it began to disappear behind tall buildings.  
“We’ve been out in the open too long,” I thought, mind running over all the cameras inside the Smithsonian. HYDRA was still on the lookout for Bucky, and if they saw him, they’d be on top of us as soon as possible. And now I’ve been seen with him too, holding his goddamn hand.  
Sure enough, as my senses went into overdrive, I spotted a trio of black SUVs crawling through DC rush hour traffic. I wheeled to face Bucky, and he almost ran into me.  
“Three HYDRA vehicles, my six o clock. We need to make cover, now.”  
I could practically see him shift into combat mode. It was almost as if the Winter Soldier had returned, but there was emotion in his eyes that reassured me Bucky was still Bucky.  
“We’ll take the back alleys, return to your apartment and formulate a strategy there,” he said. I wasn’t sure if my apartment would still be safe, but I nodded. We needed a plan, and currently this was the only one either of us could think of. The two of us made off at a casual but quick pace down the museum stairs, angling for an alley squeezed between a pizza place and a hair salon across the road.  
“Bucky, pretend like you’re talking to me,” I said, noting another SUV making its way down the road that we were going to have to cross if we wanted to make it out of here. Alive and/or with our freedom, that was.  
He threw an arm around my shoulders and ducked his head towards me.  
“We just need to make it to the alley, then it’s easy,” he said.  
“Well, not easy. Easier,” I replied, to keep the conversation going. We were almost at the road.  
“Yes, easier,” he agreed.  
“Did you find what you were looking for?” I asked after a moment. “In the exhibit?”  
He stiffened slightly.  
“I found some missing pieces.”  
Then we were across the road. The two of us strode in unison to the alley and ducked into it.  
“Wait,” Bucky said, “I want to get licence plates-at least of the one that’s going to pass us.”  
“Why?”  
“So I can see if they have just a few teams on me, or if the whole of HYDRA is about to come crashing down on us.”  
“Bucky, we need to go,” I said.  
“Take cover so they don’t see you,” he replied, ignoring me. I jogged around the corner of the pizza place to take cover while he crouched behind a dustbin.  
“Hey sweetheart, you lost?” a sleazy voice asked. I turned, and saw three guys who looked to be in their mid twenties leering at me.  
“I don’t have time for this shit,” I muttered, turning away and hoping they’d leave.  
 _“Don’t engage civilians,”_ I thought, remembering something Nick told me once. _“You can’t kill them, and the way you fight you’ll make sure they get the police on your back, and that would cause me a ton of paperwork.”_  
Come to think of it, he had been a lot more profane than that. I mentally shrugged. He wasn’t around anymore to do paperwork to stop police coming after me, and I didn’t really want any extra trouble-not that three pissed off kids would be much trouble-so I decided to hold to Nick’s advice. One rogue nazi organization is plenty to keep me occupied for a while, thanks.  
“You got some money on you, darling?” the same guy persisted, looming in what he probably thought was a threatening way.  
 _“Don’t engage civilians, Lizzie...come on Bucky, hurry up!”_  
“Nope.”  
 _“Don’t engage civilians.”_  
“You look like someone who’s new around here, so I’ll help you out.” he growled, shoving me into the wall and getting into my personal space. “Give us your cash and we’ll let you go.”  
“No,” I replied in a low voice.  
Drawing a ragged breath that spoke of years of smoking and possibly a cold coming on, he drew back his fist to punch me in the face.  
 _“Don’t engage civilians, don’t engage civilians, don’t-ah, what the hell.”_  
I engaged the civilians.  
After kneeing the guy in front of me in the balls, I spun out from behind him and slammed his head into the wall. The other two guys drew switchblades and advanced on me carefully. I backed up, and they grinned. One spun his knife clumsily.  
With a few steps of a running start, I jumped onto the wall and paused there for a fraction of a second, suspended as physics tried to catch up with me. Before it did, I was moving again. A kick to the wrist while I flew through the air disarmed the man closest to me, and I landed heavily on his shoulders. Gripping his head between my legs, I twisted roughly, bringing us both crashing to the ground. However, while he smashed down face first, I sprung free and rolled into a crouch. He groaned, out of play for a moment while I focused on my last target. Fear lit his eyes, and it was my turn to grin.  
Sweeping his legs out from underneath him with a swing of my leg, I grabbed his head before he fell all the way to the ground and slammed it into my raised knee. Not enough to kill, or even permanently injure him. I still had some mercy left in me. However, I might have rattled around what few brain cells he had left.  
A cry sounded out behind me, and I whipped around to see Bucky standing there, the second assailant at his feet.  
“I had it,” I said, a little peeved that he cut in on my fight.  
“I know you did. I just thought you wanted to get out of here sooner,” he replied innocently.  
I nodded, sobering slightly as some of the adrenaline from the fight began to fade.  
Together, we slipped through the backstreets and alleyways of DC, all the way back to my apartment. I stopped before we left cover to enter the building.  
“I have a bad feeling about this, Bucky,” I said, eyes trailing up the red brick building to a window about two thirds of the way up. I could barely see at the distance, but I knew one of those wooden three dimensional puzzles was sitting on the windowsill. It hadn’t taken long to solve, but it was fun while it lasted. Then my eyes narrowed, noticing something.  
“Bucky,” I hissed, hand on his arm.  
“I’m sure it’s nothing, you were just in a street fight, you’re probably still on edge,” he said, dismissing my worry.  
“No, Bucky, _stop_.”  
Something in my voice made him draw back into the shadows with me.  
“My curtains are drawn,” I whispered. He just looked at me, waiting for me to continue. “I never draw my curtains except at night.”  
His eyes widened in realization.  
“HYDRA moves fast,” he said. “What now?”  
“Damn, I just went grocery shopping too,” I thought absently, running through possible plans of action.  
“Hang on, I have to make a phone call.”  
For the second time that day, I dialed Natasha’s number. This time, however, she picked up.  
“Liz, what can I do for you?” she asked in a brisk tone.  
“Nat, hey. I need a favor.”  
“What sort of favor?” I could tell by her voice that she had just narrowed her eyes, as she would if we were talking face to face. Natasha Romanoff didn’t do favors. Thankfully, I was one of the few people who could ask for one without being instantly relieved of one of their digits or otherwise maimed.  
“Do you have a safe house in DC?” Of course she did, but I was trying to go about this with diplomacy, as least suspiciously as possible. No extra questions, no extra hassle. As far as the redhaired assassin was concerned, Bucky was still the Winter Soldier, and the Winter Soldier was still a target of hers. There was a whole load of baggage there that I did not want to go into at the moment. So it was best if she didn’t know who my new friend was.  
“Don’t ask stupid questions, Liz. Why do you need it?”  
“I might have got in a little trouble with everyone's current favourite nazi group.”  
She sighed longsufferingly. “How did you manage that?”  
Her tone was flat and resigned, Natasha was used to me getting in trouble, and her helping me out of it. Something about me ‘reminding her of herself’ or whatever.  
“Let’s just say, I ended up on the wrong side of a fight,” I said, remembering the warehouse. “And I might have taken something of theirs.”  
Bucky smirked. The expression held a dark sort of amusement.  
“Fine, don’t tell me. Just know that I’ll find out, and probably sooner rather than later.”  
That was concerning. I didn’t want Nat all over my case while I worked on taking HYDRA down, or before I even started on that endeavor. I tried to laugh, but it came out as an uneasy chuckle.  
“Sure thing, Natasha. What’s the address of the safe house?” When Bucky heard me say her name, his brows furrowed slightly and his eyes went out of focus a little, as they tended to do when he was thinking hard. I saw that look a lot at the museum. Filing that data away for later, I payed attention to the information Nat was giving me.  
“Okay cool, thanks,” I said, memorizing the address.  
“I’ll see you soon,” she said in a light voice, but it came out fairly threatening anyway.  
“Yeah, see you soon Nat!” I aimed for a cheery tone, ended up with something that sounded like a strangled chihuahua. I could never lie around the Russian, which was either good or bad depending on the situation.  
“Mhmm,” she said, chuckling darkly before hanging up the phone.  
“Well!” I exclaimed, taking a deep breath and smoothing my hair with a strained smile. “Talking with her is always a minefield. Come on Bucky, I found us a safe place to stay.”


End file.
